WILLOBIE (or

See also:

• WILLOUGHBY

WILLOUGHBY),

See also:

• HENRY
• HENRY (1129-1195)
• HENRY (Fr. Henri; Span. Enrique; Ger. Heinrich; Mid. H. Ger. Heinrich and Heimrich; O.H.G. Haimi- or Heimirih, i.e. " prince, or chief of the house," from O.H.G. heim, the Eng. home, and rih, Goth. reiks; compare Lat. rex " king "—" rich," therefore " mig
• HENRY (c. 1108-1139)
• HENRY (c. 1174–1216)
• HENRY, EDWARD LAMSON (1841– )
• HENRY, JAMES (1798-1876)
• HENRY, JOSEPH (1797-1878)
• HENRY, MATTHEW (1662-1714)
• HENRY, PATRICK (1736–1799)
• HENRY, PRINCE OF BATTENBERG (1858-1896)
• HENRY, ROBERT (1718-1790)
• HENRY, VICTOR (1850– )
• HENRY, WILLIAM (1795-1836)

HENRY (1575?-1596?)  , the supposed author of a poem called Willobie his Avisa, which derives interest from its possible connexion with Shakespeare's personal history . Henry Willoughby was the second son of a Wiltshire gentleman of the same name, and matriculated from St John's College, Oxford, in December 1591, at the age of sixteen . He is probably identical with the Henry Willoughby who graduated B.A. from Exeter College early in 1595, and he died before the 3oth of June 1596, when to a new edition of the poem Hadrian Dorrell added an " Apologie " in defence of his friend the author " now of late gone to God," and another poem in praise of chastity written by Henry's brother, Thomas Willoughby . Willobie his Avisa was licensed for the press on the 3rd of September 1594, four months after the entry of Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece, and printed by John Windet . It is preceded by two commendatory poems, the second of which, signed " Contraria Contrariis; Vigilantius; Dormitanus," contains the earliest known printed allusion to Shakespeare by name: " Yet Tarquyne pluckt his glistering grape, And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape." In the poem itself, Avisa, whose name is explained in Dorrell's " Epistle to the Reader " as Amans Uxor Inviolata Semper Amanda, takes up the parable alternately with her suitors, one of whom is introduced to the reader in a prose interlude signed by the author H . W., as Henrico Willobego Italo Hispalensis . This passage contains a reference which may fairly be applied to the sonnets of Shakespeare . It runs: " H . W. being sodenly infected with the contagion of a fantastical) fit, at the first sight of A, . bewrayeth the secresy of his disease unto his familiar frend W . S. who not long before had tryed the curtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recouered . . . he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, then it did for the old player." Then follows a dialogue between H . W. and W .

S., in which W . S.," the old player," a phrase susceptible of a

double sense, gives somewhat commonplace advice to the disconsolate wooer . Dorrell alleges that he found the MS. of Willobie his Avisa among his friend's papers left in his charge when Willoughby departed from Oxford on her majesty's service . There is no trace of any Hadrian Dorrell, and the name is probably fictitious; there is, indeed, good reason to think that the pseudonym, if such it is, covers the personality of the real author of the work . Willobie his Avisa proved extremely, popular, and passed through numerous editions, and Peter Colse produced in 1596 an imitation named Penelope's Complaint . See Shakspere Allusion-Books, part i., ed . C . M . Ingleby (New Shakspere Society, 1874) ; A . B . Grosart's " Introduction " to his reprint of Willobie his Avisa (188o) .